Chapter 209: Zhongli's First Encounter – A Lie or...?

Much is lost, little is regained; it has always been this way.

The silent and aloof boy half-covered his face, hesitantly peeking his fluffy head out from the corner of the wall.

His animal ears stood up slightly, to listen to the heartbeat of the experimental dog; his vertical pupils blinked slightly, to see if there were any traces of lies on the scholar's indifferent face.

"What, you don't believe me? It's good to have a skeptical spirit, but it's best to apply it to the wrong things."

Al-Hysen reached out, pushed and pulled, snatched the car away from the dumbfounded Kavi's eyes, and strode past the thoughtful little Seno.

“Come, King Li, come with me, and I will prove it to you.”

After saying that, he strode forward without waiting or inviting anyone, his movements swift and carefree.

Mainkuhn uncontrollably left the corner, weaved through the crowd, and chased after his retreating figure.

"Bang!"

Al-Hysen pushed open the office door of Nafis, the philosopher of the biophilosophy, with a single palm strike.

“Mr. Nafis.” Ignoring the sage’s astonished expression, he pushed the dog forward in the cart, his tone calm and businesslike. “Please answer, is this an illegally used experimental dog rescued by the Life Theory faction?”

"Huh? Look at the number... yes, yes." Nafis was startled by the scene and stammered in response.

“Next question,” Elhesen said, his gaze sweeping over the cowering figure in the doorway, his tone growing more serious, “How much of its life does it have left? Answer honestly.”

"? Don't you know... Ah! King Li!!"

Upon seeing the young king behind Elhesen, the sage immediately shut his mouth, daring not to say another word, and began to examine him with trembling hands.

The result was the same as last time.

"Very, very healthy! Extremely healthy! Perfectly suitable as a long-term pet!"

There are also some differences.

"The fetus in my belly is also very stable..."

"Stop, that's all."

Al-Hysen put his index finger to his lips, gesturing for silence to the fearful sage, then turned to Mainkuen, who stood frozen in the doorway, and repeated:

"Look, the miracle you have created."

What miracle?

Nafis had doubts but dared not ask. He watched in horror as the fat dog darted out of his hands and wobbled as it licked the tyrant's hand.

Good heavens! Cherish your life, stay away from him!

But the tyrannical ruler of Sumeru changed his tyrannical image in front of him. After a moment of silence, he stretched out his black claws and gently cupped the chin of the experimental dog, examining its wet black eyes.

"wer?"

"Oh my, I think I've heard some good news."

What a coincidence, the gods of Mount Sumeru happened to be passing by.

Nasita smiled and clapped her hands, concluding everything in the name of wisdom.

"It's like bringing a spring into parched land and making dying flower buds bloom again. This is the miracle you brought. Cheer up."

“…Ugh.”

"?"

Nafis was truly bewildered.

He didn't understand why Al Hessen insisted on taking away the experimental dog that they couldn't even give away, nor did he understand why he had to come back and ask about the results of the physical examination that he had asked about more than once.

He could no longer understand why the tyrannical lord, after Nasita's seemingly ordinary remark, would suddenly collapse and violently embrace the lab dog's furry neck.

"Really? Really?"

A faint sobbing sound could be heard, and the cat-eared boy looked up, tears streaming down his face without warning.

"I did it? Really?"

"You silly child."

Naxida gave a helpless smile.

"Why don't you cry when you lose something, but shed tears when you gain it?"

"But so much was lost, so little remained, and even fewer were saved by me!"

A piercing scream was followed by a desperate sob. The despair accumulated over countless years startled the lab dog, which frantically licked the salt water that had run over his mask.

“You lied to him, Al-Hysen.”

Amidst the cacophony of cries, Kavi grabbed Al-Hysen and dragged him out of the room.

"more than."

Elhesen glanced at the tear stains still wet at the corners of Kavi's eyes.

“That’s not important! I roughly know what you want to do for Mainkun—comfort, encouragement, a seed of positivity, right? But all of this is built on lies, and if it’s exposed…”

Kavi couldn't help but start to worry.

“Kavi, he’s learned his lesson from reality enough.”

The young scholar shook his head, a tenderness in his cold, emerald-green eyes that was hard for ordinary people to detect.

"What's so luxurious about indulging in a little fairy tale now?"

...

"despair."

Al-Hysen tapped the armrest of the opera house seat lightly, said nothing, and simply raised an eyebrow at his companions around him.

how?

“Elhesen has gone berserk,” Tinari said bluntly.

"Xumi's win rate has suddenly started to increase rapidly, far surpassing Fontaine's. Amazing! I want to support you as the King of Cats!" Seno exclaimed in a frenzy.

"No way! How could you bear to make me so sad back then! I really thought Mimi was only going to live for six months!" Kavi protested vehemently.

"..."

Al-Hysen paused his tapping on the armrest, turned his head away from Kavi, and scanned the opera house as if he hadn't heard anything.

Hey! You're ignoring me again!

Inside the opera house, the questioning gazes had almost completely vanished. Al-Hysen even saw Leosley clapping at him, and the judge nodding slightly as if to express his gratitude.

...It was entirely the host's attitude.

“Excellent, excellent, you are right, wise people.”

Even the gods came to praise him, and Wendy, swaying his head, recited as if drunk:

"The laws of Fontainebleau are as strict as a ruler, and the wisdom of Mount Sumeru weaves fairy tales. Scholars plant seeds of flowers with lies, which sprout in the ruins of despair. Meow~ It turns out that a tightly held hand can really hold onto a piece of sunset... Mr. Al-Hysen, what do you think of my impromptu little poem?"

"Why don't we focus on the images first?" Al-Hysen replied with a calm look.

Hey! You free spirit!

Barbatos, unperturbed by the cold response to his enthusiasm, watched with amusement as the cat-eared boy, accompanied by gentle care, finally wiped away his tears and, with a trembling voice, silenced the bewildered Nafis.

How can I take better care of my cat?

"Let me write you a list..."

Nafis only noticed that the wise king paused a little when he spoke today, but he didn't think anything was wrong. He also didn't know why Nasida had secretly high-fived Elhesen behind the king's back.

Zhongli watched the video and sighed, "He's made great progress, but that makes sense. His verbal suffering stemmed from emotional wounds."

"So if we give him ten or even a hundred times the care, it might be possible to help Mainkun return to 'normal'."

Leosley reached an encouraging conclusion and began to eagerly envision the future.

"Keeping dogs underwater is a bit cruel, but the Mello Petersburg has already broken through the surface of the water. What if we decorated the top floor into an outdoor garden..."

Naxi Da heard this and smiled as she accelerated the image.

"Hiss..."

"wer!" "wer!" "wer!" "wer!" "wer!"

Surrounded by a herd of donkeys with large and small droopy ears, Mainkuen breathed weakly. He breathed at the dogs for a while, then suddenly his eyes rolled back and he collapsed into the ruins.

"The Wrathful King!?"

Tina, who was feeding the puppy with dark circles under her eyes, was startled and pounced on him, shaking his shoulders violently.

"Don't die, Lord Li!!"

"..."

Leosley immediately shut up and began to consider whether one floor of the Mello Petersburg was enough for them to dismantle.

"There's no need to worry."

Tina watched the video and whimpered in pain.

“Those dogs are hunting dogs by nature, and they are not suitable for keeping in towns at all. My first task is to train those puppies to become qualified patrol dogs…”

He became increasingly grief-stricken as he spoke, recalling countless painful memories. Finally, he suddenly stood up and began to pluck the fine hairs from Al Heisenberg's head.

"You've done so many bad things! Couldn't you have given the Prince a regular breed of dog to raise???"

"You were just praising me a moment ago, how fickle you are."

The video speeds up again.

The audience at the opera house noticed that Mainkuhn's location had changed.

"The color of this soil... could it be?!" the learned scholar exclaimed in surprise, "A massive abyss of layered rock?!"

Young Mainkun rubbed his eyes, extremely sleepy as he threw the elemental crystals into the ley lines.

"See, I... cough, I wasn't wrong, was I!"

King Ruoduo immediately winked at Navelet, "This junior has done a good job protecting the ley lines, quickly remove the charges against him!"

"In this way, apart from Fontaine, two of the four countries have already left."

And since Mainkuhn's crime in Mondstadt was clearly less serious, Navelette couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief.

"Let the trial end smoothly, without fear or wailing..."

He had barely finished speaking when he saw Mainkuhn from his memory suddenly lower his ears and look ahead with unusual vigilance.

"In this desolate, rocky abyss, how could we possibly encounter anyone?" Just as someone raised this question, their memory gradually became clearer, and a dark brown figure slowly walked out from among the reddish-brown cliffs.

It is Zhongli.

He sensed the changes in the earth's veins and came to the Layered Rock Abyss to investigate.

Throughout the journey, he analyzed and pondered what this mysterious person who had helped Liyue twice would look like and what his purpose was.

Yes, the purpose is clear. Although the beast-eared boy who was mistaken for a Yaksha helped the 76th generation successor of the Rebirth Hall at Wuwang Slope, which is commendable, it cannot be assumed that he is harmless.

The earth's veins are the foundation of a nation, and one can never be too careful.

So, with caution and gratitude, Morax approached Mainkuen with utmost care and friendliness.

"Good day, young friend who has come from afar."

He stopped at a distance that was neither too close nor too far from Mainkun, and greeted him with a calm gaze.

"I followed the earth's veins...? May I ask, why are you retreating?"

Mainkuhn didn't answer, but instead took a big step back with his ears turned away and his back slightly hunched.

"...I meant no harm."

Coming to his senses, Zhongli thought for a moment and then stepped forward, opening his palm towards him.

"You didn't bring any weapons, please...?"

Mainkun didn't even look, hunched over and retreated sharply, retreated quickly, retreated a mile in the time it takes to say half a sentence, twitched his ears after creating distance, and turned to leave.

"..."

Zhongli sensed the other party's unwillingness to communicate.

But will Morax grant him his wish? Absolutely not, for it concerns the ley lines of Liyue.

So he used his teleportation technique to shrink the distance between them, and the next second he gently patted the cat's shoulder.

"I just wanted to talk to you about..."

"!!? That was fast!!"

Morax clearly felt the muscles under his palm tense, and the silver-gray shadow fled at breakneck speed.

"...So fast."

There was no reason not to give up, so Morax used his divine power to easily catch up with Mainkuen's back.

Why are you in such a hurry?

The calm, unchanging voice carried a hint of confusion.

"Don't you know that only those with a guilty conscience are afraid to see people's faces? Please stop in your tracks, and I will treat you with courtesy..."

!!!

The young man's pupils contracted, and he spun around sharply, making an extremely tricky turn to leave him behind and fleeing swiftly.

"..."

Morax had lived for thousands of years and had never seen such an inexplicably powerful person. Yes, a powerful person. As he ran and jumped, the aura that this young man exuded was clearly no weaker than that of a demon god, yet he was stingy with even a simple greeting, just like a fish swimming away at the sound of a voice on the riverbank.

Out of gratitude for the Wuwangpo incident, Morax tried to persuade him to stop more than a dozen times, but each time he was ruthlessly shaken off.

There's nothing we can do.

After catching up with Mainkuen for the nineteenth time, Morax reached out with extreme helplessness and firmly wrapped his hand around Mainkuen's forearm.

"Your Excellency, I really just..."

"Waaah—"

Before he could finish speaking, he heard an unmistakable wail emanating from beneath the boy's cute mask.

"Woo, woo!"

He trembled violently, kicking and thrashing his legs, leaning back as he desperately tried to break free from Zhongli's iron-hard hand.

Why, why?

"Why can't I shake this guy off?! A giant brown cockroach!!"

"Your Excellency, you—"

Morax realized something was wrong, but it was too late; he had already met a pair of tearful, vertical pupils.

"Ughh ...

...

"Uh-huh."

Wendy touched her chin seriously and gave Zhongli a mischievous smile.

"So, you actually scared him to tears the first time you met him, with that big brown cockroach?"